Course info

Rating

(29)

Level

Intermediate

Updated

Nov 17, 2016

Duration

3h 30m

Description

If you want to create more detailed characters, you'll need a strong foundational understanding of ZBrush and the new ZModeler brush. In this course, ZModeler Character Workflows in ZBrush and Maya, you will create a character from head to toe including the accessories and hard surface parts. Then, you will properly export the completed character and render it in Arnold for Maya. Finally you will unwrap the character's UVs, export, and render the final character in Maya 2017 using Arnold for Maya. By the end of this course, you'll know how to approach modeling and sculpting ANY characters in ZBrush with the ZModeler brush.
Software required: ZBrush 4r7, Maya 2017.

About the author

Rafael Duffie is a 3D modeler and sculptor with over 15 years of combined design experience and 4 years in Film and Games. He has been tested under extreme pressure, not only in the military, but also in the television film industry, as well as the comic book industry.

More from the author

Section Introduction Transcripts

Course OverviewHi everyone. My name is Rafael Duffie. Welcome to my course ZModeler Character Workflows in ZBrush and Maya. I am a character artist and lighting artist in the film, commercial, and game industries. In this course, we're going to model and sculpt a character from head to toe, complete with accessories all in ZBrush with the ZModeler Brush and a few sculpting techniques. We'll then set up UVs with the UV Master, export, and render our character with Arnold for Maya. Some of the major topics that we'll cover include ZModeler Brush workflows, making custom topology, modeling and sculpting accessories, UVs with the UV Master, and lighting and rendering with Arnold. By the end of this course you'll know how to approach modeling and sculpting any character in ZBrush with the ZModeler Brush. You'll also know how to create accessories, how to sculpt and add high resolution details with Alphas and IMM brushes, how to get your character out ZBrush properly to an 3D package, and how to make beautiful fast renders with Arnold for Maya. Before beginning this course you should be familiar with ZBrush sculpting and Maya lighting and rendering techniques. From here, you should feel comfortable diving into ZBrush and Maya with courses on modeling, sculpting, and lighting and rendering. I hope you'll join me on this journey to learn how to create characters with the ZModeler Character Workflows and ZBrush and Maya course at Pluralsight.

Blocking out the Base GeometryIn this lesson, we'll begin by taking a look at our concept and we'll discuss the importance of reference. So, here's the concept. Now, we're not going for an exact likeness, that's likeness sculpt. What we're going for is believability. I separate out all of the different part by color just so I can get a better feel for the different parts. This is called material separation. My definition of material separation is simple. The identification of objects defined by color. Another important note is to model everything. This helps to create realism in your sculpt, and it's exactly what we're going to be doing in this tutorial. Another thing I wanted to discuss is the importance of reference. Reference helps to ground your art in reality. And when it comes to character reference, I always use anatomy reference. Google, there's plenty of online platforms for reference. Everything that I do, I use reference, and I highly recommend it. The key is if you want to create more accurate, believable art, then use reference. So that takes care of our analysis, now what we're going to do is jump in to ZBrush and we're going to go over a couple of topics. I'm going to introduce you guys to the ZModeler Brush, a couple of different brushes as well, and a couple of different techniques that we're going to be using for the rest of this course. So, I'll see you in the next video.

Modeling the AccessoriesWelcome to module two. In this module, we'll begin modelling our character's accessories. I want to start by going back to our character concept and analyzing the accessories. So, let's take a look at the concept. This brings us to our return, and the analysis of our character and look at materials separation in action. We are looking at the shapes that make up our character's accessories. We'll be creating these shapes, in this module, so I want you to pay close attention to the shapes and their shape-language. Most of the parts we'll create in this module will be hard-surfaced, which is the very reason the ZModeler Brush was created. In the previous module, we approached using that ZModeler Brush in a more unconventional way than what the ZModeler Brush was intended to be used for. So in the next video, we're going to get started with modelling the neck guard.